BIO – Area singer songwriter Elizabeth Roth has been entertaining professionally in clubs throughout Northeast Florida for the past 30 years. She performs several times per week as a solo guitarist / vocalist, and is also lead vocalist and bass guitarist in a popular local classic rock trio called The Grapes of Roth.
A 2006 graduate of Stetson University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Music (classical guitar), she has self produced an award winning CD of original music. Since 2003 Roth has been employed as an adjunct music instructor at Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind, giving private lessons and also serving as an assistant director of the after school blind high school performance group Outta sight.
In 2016 she was appointed director of N’Vision, the middle school feeder program to Outta sight.
Elizabeth Roth is one of the best known solo acoustic musicians in North Florida. A versatile, interpretive performer with an impressive finger style guitar technique and a distinctive clear and strong voice, Roth is very much in demand, performing well over 200 engagements each year. Varied Influences include folk singers from the 60s’ to the present, acoustic folk-rock, rock & roll, blues, country, and classical music. Elizabeth Roth enjoys entertaining a crowd and welcomes audience suggestions. Her repertoire is extensive and includes over 500 tunes by over 300 different artists, with songs ranging in style from old standards, to folk, rock, modern country and contemporary popular music.
She also composes and performs her own original material. Her most recent album entitled “like the david” was released in April 2003 and was awarded “Cd of the Year From a Solo Act” from Songwriter’s Showcases of America. It was also voted “Best Local Cd of 2003” in the Jacksonville Folio Magazine “Best of Jax” reader’s poll.
She is lead vocalist and bass guitarist in a classic rock trio called The Grapes of Roth. (Grapes of Roth band members are Trey Moore, drums and Matt VanRysdam, lead guitar/vocals). She also plays bass and guitar and shares vocal duties in another trio called CRS (Carpenter, Roth and Sabo). Follow the links (above) for detailed information about the bands.
Self taught in music since the age of 13, Roth went on to pursue formal training in both classical guitar and classical voice as a music major at Stetson University in Deland. She graduated in fall 2006 with a Bachelor of Arts in music (guitar).
Since the fall of 2003 she has been a member of the music faculty at the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind (F.S.D.B.) in St. Augustine, teaching evening classes in popular music and performance skills to blind high school and junior high school students in a program called “Outta Sight”. She participated in the rehearsals and performance of F.S.D.B. students in the 2005 NFL Superbowl Pre-game show, where they had been invited to sing backup vocals behind Alicia Keys on “America the Beautiful” as part of a tribute to a famous school alumni, the late Ray Charles.
From 2005 to 2009 she served as an adjunct instructor of classical guitar at St. Augustine High School, magnet center for the arts in St. Johns County.
From 2006 to the present she has been an affiliate artist with the Jacksonville based music therapy program”Body & Soul”, an organization which brings various musical outreach programs and patient room visitation into many area hospitals and assisted living facilities.
Originally from Jacksonville, Florida, Roth moved to St Augustine in 1985 where she now resides with her husband and their two sons.